Abstract

Learning can enable rapid behavioural responses to changing conditions but can depend on the social context and behavioural phenotype of the individual. Learning rates have been linked to consistent individual differences in behavioural traits, especially in situations which require engaging with novelty, but the social environment can also play an important role. The presence of others can modulate the effects of individual behavioural traits and afford access to social information that can reduce the need for ‘risky’ asocial learning. Most studies of social effects on learning are focused on more social species; however, such factors can be important even for less-social animals, including non-grouping or facultatively social species which may still derive benefit from social conditions. Using archerfish, Toxotes chatareus, which exhibit high levels of intra-specific competition and do not show a strong preference for grouping, we explored the effect of social contexts on learning. Individually housed fish were assayed in an ‘open-field’ test and then trained to criterion in a task where fish learnt to shoot a novel cue for a food reward—with a conspecific neighbour visible either during training, outside of training or never (full, partial or no visible presence). Time to learn to shoot the novel cue differed across individuals but not across social context. This suggests that social context does not have a strong effect on learning in this non-obligatory social species; instead, it further highlights the importance that inter-individual variation in behavioural traits can have on learning.

Significance statement

Some individuals learn faster than others. Many factors can affect an animal’s learning rate—for example, its behavioural phenotype may make it more or less likely to engage with novel objects. The social environment can play a big role too—affecting learning directly and modifying the effects of an individual’s traits. Effects of social context on learning mostly come from highly social species, but recent research has focused on less-social animals. Archerfish display high intra-specific competition, and our study suggests that social context has no strong effect on their learning to shoot novel objects for rewards. Our results may have some relevance for social enrichment and welfare of this increasingly studied species, suggesting there are no negative effects of short- to medium-term isolation of this species—at least with regards to behavioural performance and learning tasks.

中文翻译：

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个人的行为特征而不是社会背景会影响对射箭鱼新事物的学习

摘要

学习可以使人对变化的条件做出快速的行为反应，但是可以取决于个人的社会背景和行为表型。学习率已与行为特征的个体差异保持联系，特别是在需要新颖性的情况下，但社会环境也可以发挥重要作用。其他人的存在可以调节个人行为特征的影响，并提供对社会信息的访问，从而可以减少对“风险”社会学习的需求。关于学习对社会影响的大多数研究都集中在更多的社会物种上。但是，即使对于社会程度较低的动物，包括仍可能从社会条件中受益的非分组或兼职的社会物种，此类因素也可能很重要。使用弓箭鱼表现出高水平的种内竞争并且对分组没有强烈偏好的毒舌龟，我们探索了社交情境对学习的影响。在“野外”测试中对单独饲养的鱼进行了分析，然后对其进行训练，使其能够在一项任务中进行判据，在该任务中，鱼学会了为食物奖励拍摄新颖的线索-在训练过程中，训练以外或从不（完全（完整） ，部分或没有可见的存在）。学习射击新颖线索的时间因人而异，但因社会背景而异。这表明在这种非强制性的社会物种中，社会背景对学习没有很大的影响；相反，它进一步强调了行为特征的个体间差异对学习的重要性。

重要性声明

有些人比其他人学习得更快。许多因素都会影响动物的学习速度，例如，动物的行为表型可能会或多或少地使它与新事物接触。社会环境也可以发挥很大的作用-直接影响学习并改变个人特质的影响。社会情境对学习的影响主要来自高度社会化的物种，但最近的研究集中在社会化程度较低的动物上。射手鱼显示出较高的种内竞争，我们的研究表明，社交情境对他们学习射击新颖物体以获取报酬没有强烈影响。我们的研究结果可能与这种日益研究的物种的社会富裕和福利有关，